ESay
Gold Member
- Mar 14, 2015
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If the Ukraine gets divided between Russia and Poland, then would Russians want to lay claims to its Zakarpatie territory? That part was a part of Slovakia/Hungary, and if Poland doesn't want it then it would create a Russian island in those mountains. Would Russia still want it as an island?
The issue is more complicated. The question isn’t about Zakarpatie. Take a look on this map
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/06/Ukraine_KIIS-Regional-division.png
The map depicts three main cultural regions inside Ukraine (orange – Western Ukraine, yellow – Central Ukraine, and dark/light blue – South-Eastern Ukraine (so-called Novorossia)).
While the orange part could be incorporated into Poland (except Zakarpatie, which is most likely to be in Hungary) and the blue part incorporated into Russia, there still remains a question what to do with the yellow part. The people who live in this part mostly don’t want to join Russia and have pro-European views (though these feelings aren’t as high as in the Western part).
There may be three possible scenarios:
1. Creation an independent state.
Not viable project – land-locked territory, almost without natural resources and significant industrial assets.
2. Joining to Poland.
Too big and culture-different territory to be incorporated fast and easily. There are no economical gains for Poland.
3. Joining to Russia.
There are significant minuses for Russia: the first and foremost – significant part of population has anti-Russian views and feelings of Ukrainian national identity – it makes highly possible that “euromaidans” will be happening in the future; no economical gains. The only positive thing – pride for gaining territories which were parts of the Old Rus’ state and the Russian Empire.